The Evolution of Korean Society

After the Three Kingdoms period, Korea witnessed the rise and fall of
three dynasties--unified Silla (668-935), Koryo (918-1392), and Choson
(1392-1910). Each of these dynasties was marked by initial periods of
consolidation, the flourishing of civilization, and eventual decline.

Silla

The first 215 years of the Silla Dynasty were marked by the
establishment of new political, legal, and education institutions of
considerable vigor. Domestic and foreign trade (with Tang China and
Japan) prospered. Scholarship in Confucian learning, mathematics,
astronomy, and medicine also flourished. Buddhism, introduced to the
peninsula in A.D. 372, reached its zenith.

Silla began to decline, however, in the latter part of the eighth
century when rebellions began to shake its foundations. By the latter
half of the ninth century, two rivals had emerged. The chaotic situation
eventually led to the emergence of a new Koryo Dynasty in 918 under a
former officer, Wang Kon.

Koryo

The founder of Koryo and his heirs consolidated control over the
peninsula and strengthened its political and economic foundations by
more closely following the bureaucratic and landgrant systems of Tang
China. The rise of the Kitan Liao tribe in the north, however,
threatened the new dynasty. The Liao invaded in 1010; Koryo was engulfed
in devastating wars for a decade. After peace was restored, Koryo's
inhabitants witnessed nearly a century of thriving commercial,
intellectual, and artistic activities parallel to those taking place
under the Song Dynasty (960-1279) in China. The Koryo leaders actively
sought to imitate the Song's advanced culture and technology. In turn,
the Song looked upon Koryo as a potential ally against the tribal
invaders to whom it had been forced to abandon northern China in 1127.
Stimulated by the rise of printing in Song China, Koryo also made great
headway in printing and publication, leading to the invention of movable
metal type in 1234, two centuries before the introduction of movable
type in Europe.

By the twelfth century, Koryo was plagued by internal and external
problems. Power struggles and avariciousness among the ruling classes
led to revolts by their subjects. The situation was aggravated by the
rise in the north of the Mongols, who launched a massive invasion in
1231. The Koryo armies put up fierce resistance but were no match for
the highly organized mounted troops from the north, whose forces swept
most of the Eurasian continent during this period.

The Mongol Empire under Khubilai Khan enlisted Koryo in its
expeditions against Japan, mustering thousands of Korean men and ships
for ill-fated invasions in 1274 and 1281. In each instance, seasonal
typhoons shattered the Mongol-Koryo fleets, giving rise to the myth of
kamikaze, or the "divine wind." Korea, in the meantime, was
completely under Mongol domination. Koryo kings married Mongol
princesses. Only in the early fourteenth century, when the Mongol Empire
began to disintegrate and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)--founded by a
former Chinese peasant--pushed the Mongols back to the north, did Koryo
regain its independence. In 1359 and 1361, however, Koryo suffered
invasions by a large number of Chinese rebel armies, known as the Red
Banner Bandits, who sacked and burned the capital at Kaesong, just north
of the mouth of the Han River. The country was left in ruins.

As the Mongols retreated to the north and the Ming established a
garrison in the northeastern part of the Korean Peninsula, the Koryo
court was torn between pro-Ming and pro-Mongol factions. General Yi
Song-gye, who had been sent to attack the Ming forces in the Liaodong
region of Manchuria, revolted at the Yalu and turned his army against
his own capital, seizing it with ease. Yi took the throne in 1392,
founding Korea's most enduring dynasty. The new state was named Choson,
the same name used by the first Korean kingdom fifteen centuries
earlier, although the later entity usually has been called simply the
Choson Dynasty or the Yi Dynasty. The capital of Choson was at Seoul.